BEST PICTURE SHOWCASE: "The Life of Emile Zola" (1937)

One of the things I've enjoyed most in doing this blog series is learning about and watching the Best Picture winners in history that I know very little, if anything, about.  Today, we have one of those films.  1937's The Life of Emile Zola is a biographical motion picture, or biopic, about the French author and activist Zola, practitioner of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism.  He also did not shy away from controversial topics, calling out the government and society when he felt it was necessary.  He was usually right, because Zola was a major figure in the political liberalization of France from the Nazis.  His biggest success, if you will, probably was being greatly responsible for the exoneration of a falsely accused and convicted army officer named Alfred Dreyfus.  The film's title would seem to indicate it's about Zola's entire life, but that's not quite the case.  It does not cover any of Zola's childhood, but instead starts up in 1862 when Zola was in his early 20's.  Let's take a look at the first film to score 10 Oscar nominations.

BEST PICTURE SHOWCASE: "Braveheart" (1995)

It's been said that history will teach us nothing, or that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  In the case of 1995 Best Picture winner Braveheart, it can also be said that history doesn't have to get in the way of Hollywood storytelling.  There has perhaps never been a more historically-inaccurate Best Picture than this one, and I'm not saying that just to nitpick.  Randall Wallace wrote the screenplay with heavy influence from Blind Harry's 15th century epic poem The Acts and Deeds of Sir William Wallace, Knight of Elderslie, which has long been considered in and of itself quite historically inaccurate.  However, in writing about William Wallace, Randall Wallace (no relation, by the way) based very little of the screenplay on either actual history or Blind Harry's poem.  Hell, even the title of Braveheart refers in the film to William Wallace when in reality, it was a nickname for Robert the Bruce.  The movie depicts an affair between Wallace and France's Princess Isabelle, which surely did not happen since in the depicted time period of actuality, Isabelle was about 3 years old.  Scotsmen also did not wear kilts, much less plaid with belts, in this era.  Historian Sharon Krossa pretty much summed it up in a 2001 essay by saying, "The events aren't accurate, the dates aren't accurate, the characters aren't accurate, the names aren't accurate, the clothes aren't accurate—in short, just about nothing is accurate."

Evidently, history isn't important here.  Just entertainment.  So in that regard, I suppose Braveheart is a success.  Let's take a look.

BEST PICTURE SHOWCASE: "Patton" (1970)

General George S. Patton was a decorated war hero who came from a military family.  He was a major player in both World Wars I and II, helping especially in the latter lead the Allied Forces to victory with his strategies and brilliance.  He pulled very few punches and often spoke his mind without fear or saying the "right" thing.  He was also confrontational and controversial, getting into trouble with his superiors because of his actions, including statements to the media that would at times criticize U.S. war strategy.  It seems fitting that the 1970 film biography of the man was portrayed by a unique actor the likes of George C. Scott, who also had a reputation at times for being a bit against-the-grain, prone to moodiness on movie sets and having a complete disdain for the competitiveness of Hollywood when it came to such things as the Oscars.  A perfect storm of circumstances, no?  Patton winds up highly successful and racks up a slew of Oscar nominations, including for that of Scott's performance, which he requested to not be nominated for but was anyway.  Scott wins the Best Lead Actor award and doesn't attend the ceremony.  The award was never claimed by him either.  He requested that the Academy donate the award to the George Patton museum in Kentucky, but he only made the request verbally.  Since it was not in writing, it was never donated.  To the best of my knowledge the award is currently on display at the Virginia Military Institute Museum, a military school that the real Patton attended.  With all that said, Patton clocks in at nearly three hours but never drags.  The film and Scott's performance are engaging, and the battle scenes are incredibly well done.  I had planned on writing this blog during a recent trip to Seattle, as I had a laptop and my notes all ready.  Unfortunately, my notes wound up misplaced, so I'll do the best I can on a synopsis from memory.  Let's take a look at what was President Nixon's all-time favorite film, 1970 Best Picture Patton.

BEST PICTURE SHOWCASE: "Gladiator" (2000)

"Swords and sandals" was a term that developed in the 1950's and 1960's in relation to Hollywood films that tackled Ancient Rome and Greece.  Those movies had common elements such as chariots and the feudal system and, of course, gladiators.  Those types of movies died out a long time ago, even becoming a punchline (a Leslie Neilsen quote in the movie Airplane actually makes you laugh about pedophilia and then subsequently hate yourself for it).  It seemed quite a ballsy task for director Ridley Scott to attempt to resurrect that style of movie, but he did so with Gladiator.  The film is loosely based on historical events, and Scott wanted to portray the Roman culture more accurately than past films had done.  For example, no one's eating grapes and drinking wine and having raucous orgies.  Maybe the porn parody of this movie went there, but Scott didn't.  Several historians were hired as advisors for the film, although obviously some dramatic license still took place, causing at least one of those historians to refuse an on-screen credit.  The actual Marcus Aurelius was not murdered, he died of the plague.  Commodus was not reviled from the start, he actually was a popular emperor at first.  Such details can always be nitpicked.  What ultimately matters here is that Gladiator tells a pliable story.  Let's take a look at the first Best Picture of the 21st century.

BEST PICTURE SHOWCASE: "Going My Way" (1944)

Bing Crosby is probably best remembered for his crooning musical style, but he was also a very accomplished actor.  Most of his early acting roles were for musical comedy or just comedy in general, such as the Road to... series with Bob Hope.  When producer/director Leo McCarey told Paramount that he wanted Crosby to play the lead role in his upcoming film, Paramount wasn't sold on the idea, as Crosby had never previously shown any dramatic acting chops.  However, McCarey got his wish, and Going My Way wound up the biggest box-office draw of the year, garnering much acclaim for its star as well, who wound up thriving for many years to follow in films of all genres.  Watching the film as I did for the first time recently, 70 years after its initial release, I found it a nice movie but rather slow at times, especially for a musical.  (For instance, it's much less grandiose in comparison to the MGM musicals of later years.)  Sizing this up with several other Best Picture nominees that year, I was actually quite flabbergasted as to how this one took home the top prize in addition to many other Oscars.  Maybe we'll learn how that happened in the synopsis.

BEST PICTURE SHOWCASE: "West Side Story" (1961)

William Shakespeare lived from the years 1564 to 1616.  The Oscars have existed from 1929 to present day in 2014.  Four hundred years apart, yet they've intertwined on many occasions.  There have been plenty of nominations for films that were directly or indirectly adapted from The Bard's works.  One film, 1948's Hamlet, was a straightforward adaptation starring Laurence Olivier.  Both he and the film won top honors.  1998 saw Shakespeare in Love take home Best Picture.  This was a fictional story set in his era where the character of William Shakespeare fell in love with a beautiful woman, and this influenced him to write the story of Romeo & Juliet.  One other film exists on the list of Shakespeare stories resulting in Best Picture wins, and that is West Side Story.  Based off the stage play of the same name, West Side Story is a modern-day (at the time...1950's New York City) retelling of the Romeo & Juliet story, with the two feuding families replaced by two feuding street gangs of young men.  Our "Romeo" is Tony.  Our "Juliet" is Maria.  Thanks to the talents of co-directors Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, screenwriter Ernest Lehman, composer/songwriter Leonard Bernstein and a large acting ensemble, West Side Story remains today one of the most successful movie musicals of all-time.  This will wind up being a rather brief synopsis as the story within the 152-minute film pretty much tells itself alongside a great deal of singing and dancing, and I'll never be able to do it proper justice of just how good that story is, but here goes.

BEST PICTURE SHOWCASE: "Titanic" (1997)

I'm 41 years of age.  This means I've lived through what is unofficially one full generation (about 35 years) and am into my second one.  I've seen major movie events, I've seen smash successes, I've seen crazes and fads and the occasional billion-with-a-B-grossing blockbuster.  But I've only seen one true phenomenon the likes of Titanic.  The success this film enjoyed was incredible, but what was even more incredible was that for months, even over a year if you count when it was released on VHS, people went absolutely apeshit over this movie.  People were going to see it in theaters more than once, more than twice, more than four times...I remember one news report of a woman who would go to see it every Wednesday night for as long as it ran in her theater, and she'd always bring someone new each week (no, she wasn't playing the field, she was bringing her female friends.  Her husband went the first week and decided once was enough), and by the time it left her theater she had seen it 33 times.  THIRTY-THREE TIMES!  I even took an informal poll on Facebook a week or so ago and most of the answers I got were that people had seen it at least twice in the theater during its run.  And what a run it was!  It topped the box office for 15 straight weeks, a record that will probably never be broken.  It was making over a million dollars a week every single week, even months after it peaked.  It brought in over $13M on a Saturday over two months after it first was released, as that particular Saturday was Valentine's Day.  Oh, but it wasn't even just the movie.  The soundtrack is the biggest-selling primarily-orchestral (i.e., the score) soundtrack of all time, and by far.  That's not why most people bought it though.  They bought it for Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On", which itself won a zillion awards, topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks (a short duration only because the cassette single was a limited release) and helped the soundtrack top the Billboard 200 Album Chart for four months.  How many soundtracks sell over 11 million copies?  Not many, but this one did.  Indeed, Titanic was a Happening, and I capitalized that word on purpose to stress the magnitude of it.  Most of you no doubt remember the mania.  I truly have never seen anything like it, and I doubt I ever will again.  Let us board...